Gardens are teaching labs; sunflowers make great teaching aids

NEW MARKET, Va. -- Back when I was growing up, kids would measure the length of their summer vacations against what was happening in the family garden.

Around Memorial Day or about the time of the class picnic, the threat of the last frost had passed and the ground was warm enough for planting watermelon seeds. It would take 80 days or so for "Big Bertha" to reach its 40-pound maturity.

Some of the early sweet corn varieties would grow knee high by the Fourth of July. A few of the more literal-minded among us would walk the cornrows, holding stalks against their legs as a blue-jean kind of yardstick.

Back-to-school sales would begin blooming along with the sunflowers. The towering plants were eye-catching reminders that summer was fading fast and the buses soon would be rolling again.

Excellent learning labs, gardens. And great teaching aids, sunflowers. Summers spent hoeing, mowing and gathering were wonderful opportunities for backfilling our many educational gaps.

"Horticulture is a nice educational tool because it has so many aspects," says Cynthia Haynes, an extension specialist for consumer/urban horticulture with Iowa State University at Ames. "It teaches science, health and nutrition, how things work and how things change with variables. "It provides physical activity -- some of the best exercises including crunches and weightlifting. It makes for quality family time, a chance to talk while you weed."

Sunflowers are among the best show-and-tell aids in nature, says Haynes, who among other things teaches a classroom course entitled "Educating Youth through Horticulture."

Sunflowers can teach children something about nature's cycles, Haynes says, something about birth and maturity, death and renewal. Sunflowers are thought to have had their beginnings in Central America and the American Southwest where they were used to supplement the daily diet as well as for dyes, medicines and building materials. Credit the latter-day Russians with developing them into an important source of edible oil, behind only soybeans and cottonseed.

Many gardeners are discovering sunflowers by way of several new ornamentals on the market. While the more traditional Russian giants can produce 20-inch seed heads and grow 10 to 15 feet tall, some recently developed dwarfs show well in borders and containers.